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Coming to you from my home office in the UK

Tue, 04/21/2020 - 09:27

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We are currently in our sixth week of working from home, and for me, it has taken a while for the routine to settle (cabin fever felt extremely real in the first week!). I still have odd days where I can’t quite believe I’m still not going into London, but on the whole I’m used to my home office.

At Pearson, we are lucky to have a number of resources available to support our working from home journey, such as Microsoft Teams so we can keep in touch and Office 365 to help us collaborate on files. So in the Higher Education Qualifications team, we have been able to make a smooth transition. I therefore wanted to share some of my thoughts from this experience thus far, and hope that this enables you to do the same.

Adjustment

By the end of the first week, I was surprised to find that my eyes were hurting from an increased amount of screen time. In the office you are often in meetings, however those meetings all now involve looking at a screen. I now make sure I take a 5 minute break from the screen every hour, and usually try not to look at my phone over lunch either.

Having recently completed our personality profiles in the office, as an extrovert I knew I would struggle with the lack of human contact in lockdown. However, I had not anticipated the plethora of zoom calls / online quizzes / regular catch-ups that I would be having with friends in the evenings and at weekends, often those that I don’t even see very often! In some ways, I actually feel more connected to some of them - it’s amazing what a sense of ‘togetherness’ can do.

I quickly found that it would be a good idea to keep some routines, to try and reduce the number of changes; I get up and start work at the same time and also try to have the same number of cups of tea/coffee, otherwise I go into caffeine overdrive!

Thinking positively

I wanted to share my personal highlights from the last few weeks - please feel free to add your own in the comments!

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying having more time to spend on cooking and trying out new recipes, although I’m yet to master the sourdough bread.

It’s safe to say that I’m not missing the commute into central London, and I suspect that most of my colleagues are likely to agree!

We are extremely lucky at the moment in the UK to be allowed outside to exercise once a day, and I appreciate that many of you reading this will not have that luxury. Although I’ve always been quite an ‘outdoorsy’ person, I’m hoping that this experience will help us to all take a step back and really appreciate the time that we can spend outside, whether that’s playing sport, walking around town or finding new hobbies.

As it is likely that we have a while left before we emerge back into central London, there will still be challenging times ahead. Everybody has specific personal sacrifices that they will have made, but if quarantine has taught us anything, it is that, by working together, we remain resilient and ready for the future.

I joined Pearson in July 2019 from a Higher Education background, having studied languages at university. I work in the Progression and Recognition team, helping to ensure that our students and centres are aware of their options post-study, whether this is into employment or further education.